American Exceptionalism and Dehumanization Laid Bare

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham has revealed what he says is the death toll in the U.S. drone war overseas. At a speech in South Carolina Wednesday night, Graham said: "We’ve killed 4,700. Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we’re at war, and we’ve taken out some very senior members of al-Qaeda." Graham’s comments mark the first time a U.S. official has offered a figure for those killed in nearly a decade of U.S. drone strikes abroad. The 4,700 figure matches the high end of an estimate by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which has extensively covered the strikes and faced a concerted U.S. government effort to discredit its work.- Sen. Graham Reveals Toll of 4,700 in U.S. Drone War- Democracy Now

This quote witnesses to more than the soul-less blather of an obnoxious pseudo-statesman from a state, whose government, is dysfunctional as his frontal lobe.  This quote encapsulates the tacit justification of not only the drone program, but our greater military approach to not only its current campaigns, but its role in the world and our national interests.  I'd like to analyze this statement through several different lenses.

1. A thought experiment: If this statement had been referencing some kind of domestic war on drugs, and the senator was referring to Americans when he said: "We’ve killed 4,700. Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we’re at war, and we’ve taken out some very senior members of [insert cartel/gang here]" This would be on every news channel as a leading story, reviling the Senator for his lack of care or respect for the lives of American citizens.  Not to mention it would constitute political suicide.  This differentiation in audience response is simply because the men, women and children murdered were not American citizens.  I am just as grateful for and aware of the opportunities and securities guaranteed to me by the Constitution as anyone.  But in this case, it's interpretation seems to symbolize our government's gross misunderstanding of the universal nature of humans' right not to be murdered, and then cursorily disregarded by the ignorant and powerful as collateral damage.  The senator not only disregards the inherent worth of their lives, but also identifies their death as justified, in that it helped us kill other targets (whose aims, allies, groups, and names change every day) that we take for granted are legitimate threats, from a military with an historically bad track record on preemptive warfare.

2. Thought experiment: Had zero terrorist targets been "taken out"  would the 4,700 deaths be justified still under Senator Graham's thinking?  The answer to this question would remain contingent and debatable, not enough information is available but I believe the question illustrates a larger point.  The point being, that these foreign lives have become the means to an end, determined by the interests of a small group of men, remotely.  In addition to all those ethical quandaries, their involvement (the murdered people) is not only accidental, but inevitable, a known unknown if you will.  The "taking out" these particular terrorists seems to be the fully absolving end goal, so I would assume that had the drone program been ineffective at first, that the future goal would still act as a worthy justification, and the murdered civilians as necessary deaths. 

3. What is going on here, is that our government is engaging in , and creating a new kind of warfare.  It is one that is unprecedented:  fighting an enemy  that has no standing army, no state, no cohesive mission.  As this is a new framework of warfare, it is difficult to approach it with the "ethical" frameworks used to "structure" previous conflicts. i.e. Geneva convention, ICC (which the US is not a signatory to), etc... These are just well known examples of precedent for philosophical examination of warfare, though they could not begin to address the brazen adolescent imprudence that has characterized our warfare.  In short, we are making it up as we go along.  And the voices of the military industrial complex symbolized in both parties make the implicit injunction to not question the grave practices that are being carried out by our country.  In the case here, Senator Graham, is ideologically, presenting the ultimate good as fighting terror, a goal which is endless, implying consistent threat and fear, while implying that opposition to this paradigm is relegated to the Utopian idealism of a fantasy world.  I challenge not only his juevenille cynicism, lack of ethical scope, and disrespect for life, but also his use of the word: war, and the validity of the targets he identifies.  I would question whether defeating an organization that repoduces in correlation with Western agression can ever be achieved when our, citizen to "very senior members of al Qaeda" ratio, is what it is.  If the government is going to continue to set us up for a endless war on terror, I would advise a mindful population to begin to care.

4. As long as we can hear: "We’ve killed 4,700. Sometimes you hit innocent people, and I hate that, but we’re at war" and let whoever said it go on as a legislator, and accept new undefined concepts of warfare to be simultaneously created and self regulated by the most powerful military in the world, I question whether it is "we" who are more deserving of the right to life, or the men, women, and children "we" murdered, and dismissed, in the same way one laments a broken egg in a carton one dropped.

In Late Capitalism, if Freedom is Deregulation, then Justice is Authoritarian, but the Invisible Hand is Still a Bitchslap

There is a very weird perception that goes on in critiques of the left concerning how its goal is "less freedom" and ultimately authoritarian.  This is not true.  The fluffy construction of a notion of freedom that usually frames these critiques sets the stage for the cookie cutter argument that simply sustains the status quo, while pretending to "take back" a nation that has lost its "moral" moorings. 
Since when did prudent stewardship of our environment become a notion to scoff at?  Only when inserted into the value system of a profit oriented free market does this negative distinction make sense.  Since when did investment in strong public education warrant accusations of indoctrination and wasteful spending? The same can be said for the critiques of welfare, minimum wage increase, bank regulation, corporate tax increase, graduated income tax, demilitarization, universal health care etc... The right is not stupid.  Their ideology is so thoroughly enmeshed with the virtues of the free market (that happens to be currently cannibalizing not only the poor but also the middle class now) that they cannot reconcile an America outside of the parameters of capitalism. What I am getting at here is not a critique of the economic violence or failings of capitalism.  I am attempting to examine it's ideological hold on conservative America in the light of its psychological appeal to the "traditional" American ethics grounded largely in Christianity and individualism.  Max Weber elaborates on this in different fashions in "The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism".  A psychologically symbiotic relationship seems to exist between the traditional religious American right, and the value set of free market economics.
These values seem to relieve the population of what Erich Fromm would refer to as the "burdens of freedom" in his work: "Escape from Freedom".  In submitting to the ideals of capitalism, one can be assured that his labor exploitation is only temporary, because of the promise of upward mobility, reassured by his envy of the upper echelons of society that await him.  And in addition one can also be comforted by the fact that one's labor exploitation places them in a position morally superior to those unemployed or exploited more intensely than himself, (unfortunate groups guaranteed in vast numbers in a free market society).  I do not intend to admonish those who feel this way, but simply to identify the logical agreement, the intersection of values between "traditional" America and the values of the free market. 
From this perspective we can answer the initial question of this article.  It is easily understood how a government attempting to counteract the inevitable injustices of the system, they identify with on a social and psychological level, would be considered an enemy of freedom and authoritarian.  By blaming its injustices on the moral failings of individuals, they are not only freed of their burden of societal responsibility, any value set that would seek to bring justice to disenfranchised, marginalized individuals can be identified as immoral, authoritarian, and against "freedom".  In this sense "freedom" can be defined as the smooth functioning of the system, because any deviation is a breach of unhindered operation of things.  It is from this paradigm that the ideals of the left are authoritarian. 

Re-thinking How We Engage Ignorant Ideologies and Their Champions

We are awash in political debate in the era of an ever increasing connectivity to the cyber-world.  While most of us can generally accept the majority of political debate as juvenile and superfluous at best, those of us seeking out alternate forms of journalism and dialogue, (myself included) almost inevitably indulge also, in news about the opposing ideology for comic relief.  This kind of reporting/humor can run a gamut from sharp satire productively re examining a depressing reality ( in the tradition of Voltaire, Twain etc..) to cheap and easy bashing of ideologies so ignorant and dismissible that nothing can be gleaned from paying them any mind but a sense of self righteousness and superiority like that of a human to an oyster.  There is a difference between holding powerful leaders accountable for their actions, and cynically highlighting the ignorance of cultures so isolated and caricaturized that they bear no significance to any edifying debate.  Do we not dull our own sense of social resolve and critical acuity when we are inundated with the political equivalent of  the Jerry Springer effect in articles, tv shows, blogs, memes, and conversation more focused on the surface stupidity of "the other guys" than a real critique of their actions, maybe even a response to the problem?
Now, we can't be impartial observers, interacting with our society in an emotionless vacuum, however we can certainly take another look at how we approach the opposition, internally as well as externally, because both are connected. While the unfortunate phenomenon outlined earlier can leave an observer in a mental stasis, ironically unsuited to the critique the mental stasis they identify in opposing ideologies, simply ignoring sardonic mockery  is not going to re frame societal perceptions.
One can engage the opposition, even from a revolutionary standpoint with our common humanity not only in mind, but the foundation of our philosophical and communicative approach.  Losing sight of this integral part of societal conception, we limit not only the potentialities of our ideological opponents, but also those of our own minds.  I do not refer to semantic nonsense like: "agreeing to disagree", or "don't hate the player, hate the game".  But I do find a succinct expression of the kind of approach I'm trying to articulate in the language of Dr. Cornel West when he says, as he often does: "we love oligarchs, but we hate oligarchy"  This is a more revolutionary response, because it recognizes not only the revolutionary burden to overthrow the current system, but also to exercise human love within the parameters of those constraints, while holding those in power accountable, to the highest degree, for their actions within the corrupt system they organize and perpetuate.  In referring to even his most heinous opponents as brother and sister, he directs his approach from an affirmation of our commonality, a reminder of the intrinsic value of that humanity we hold in common, and a warning not to lose touch with the reality that we are, like our species, at times evil and at times good.  We cannot dehumanize evil people, just as we cannot elevate ourselves to an untouchable superior position.  Both of these approaches redraw reality to make it fit our fantasy.  If we want any chance of understanding and positive motion toward a better society, we need to reject not only the fanatasies of those that oppose us, but also those fantasies we are tempted to create in our own minds.  Our approach must be from a grounded mind, aware of its stature in the project of humanity. 

Desmond Tutu's Ballsy Challenge to the American Military Industrial Complex

Archbishop Desmond Tutu presents a challenge to the American military's drone policy.  But his  call is one of far more interesting implications and philosophical gravitas than much of our domestic protests concerning our own Constitution and "citizens rights" has to offer.  

Accurate State of the Union

"Drones: Seeing Ourselves for What We Really Are"

The recent publicity and controversy over the Obama administration's drone strikes in the Middle East forces a critical conversation on US foreign policy that before was far less pronounced or mainstream.  We have quietly transitioned into a constant state of war, because our war is a containment of terrorists, or "terrorism", spread across the world.  Our remote preemptive approach to perceived threats that has been cultivated in the past years, proceeds the US's interventionist nation building, and "containment policy" of the past decades.  This policy of "proactive" "safeguarding of our interests" has been publicly reaffirmed in the recent hearings concerning the nomination of Brennan to head the CIA.  But it is this very military perspective that our drone policy is simply the logical conclusion of.  Attempts to sugar coat a policy of globally murderous American exceptionalism, in calls for transparency and judicial oversight neglect the very core of the crime we commit.  This is the crime of the devaluation of human life, and the trauma we subject entire generations to, in the name of a war, whose enemies are whoever ends up dead at the end of the day.
The fact that remote killings from the sky are extra psychologically disturbing has brought our policy of preemptive attack to a philosophical trial that before might have been dismissed as pacifist idealism and lefty contrariness.
The obvious defense of the drone program is that they eliminate terrorist threats while keeping troops off the ground and so protect the American public and its armed services.  The clear criticism of this policy is that we are causing substantial civilian casualties, while terrorizing entire populations that live in fear and whose children are dying or surviving, to grow up in trauma.  To say nothing of the outrageous moral aberration  that these policies pose, it would seem strategically counterproductive to fight terrorism, not only in a endless campaign of acute covert raids and assassinations, but also in the inevitably indiscriminate bombings that will serve to cement not only present antiquated religious prejudices but also create new terror and justifiable rage in multiple generations in more countries across a region that is already the most volatile part of the globe.
To take a clear stance against our drone warfare policy is to indite our policy of preemptive warfare.
Our population has grown increasingly detached from our state of war.  We are isolated from the monetary burden (temporarily) via tax cuts that coincided with the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.  We are isolated from information by a media castrated and lobotomized by chasing ratings and pleasing sponsors.  And we are governed by inert legislative bodies muted by revolving door politics and powerful lobbies.  In short, we do not experience the fact that our country is at war.  Together with our presumed moral infallibility, the pervading fear inherent in a war on an enemy as amorphous as"terror" assures our population's complicity.  Now with a darker, louder, more sinister symbol of our military foreign policy, we may be able to engage its strategic failings and moral  horrors in a viable conversation with stronger political momentum.